Hello and greetings. Your Prince returns. So, I saw parts of Venom. Parts. I admit I couldn’t stomach the tone the movie took and even the trailer left me woefully concerned about how the movie was going to handle Venom and Eddie Brock. Critics mostly have agreed with me, panning the film for poor writing, weird graphics and a strange tone. Movie viewers seem to be in love with the film, it has already surpassed Justice League as far as the box office goes (not a high bar to jump over, but I’ll give the movie that).
Venom is a poor movie based on pacing, graphics, consideration of the source material and more; but the fans seem to love it and will doggedly defend it. I’m not here to bash the film but it is a curious place to be for me: especially with nerdy films, the fans will go to bat for what is objectively hot garbage.
I want to know why.
Now, Venom is not the first movie that the fans have rally around it. Justice League, Suicide Squad and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice all come to mind as movies that are on paper and based upon the canon source material are hot garbage but the fans will defend these films to the death. One negative word about Suicide Squad brings out all the DC-film apologists who are clamoring to tell you about all the good things about the movie.
Which brings us to my favorite aspect of going down with a burning garbage barge:
But that one part was cool!
So, Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle was a flailing ball of garbage after how electrified the first film left me. Yes, the fight sequences were cool but that does not make up for the fact that the movie betrays the first film and the source material. The parts do not make up for the whole. That doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate that one cool sequence, it just means that the rest of the film isn’t good enough to ride that momentum.
The next major argument often lobbed at film critics is “they don’t understand the source material”. Okay, so that one I’ll buy sometimes! There are plenty of critics that have never touched a comic book in their lives and it shows. It’s actually one of the biggest reasons I stopped watching CinemaSins. Now, there are plenty of reasons why that also fails. Sure, critics should know a little bit of what they’re talking about when they review a piece. Tony Stark’s lack of character development comes to mind in Marvel movies. Many complain during Avengers films about Tony’s lack of an arc and how his bad calls nearly kill everyone: well, that’s Tony Stark. He’s literally like that in the comics. His bad calls nearly get tons of people killed and that’s what makes him so painfully human and tragic. But bad writing is bad writing, canon be damned. Suicide Squad is a great example of this: the writing is not good and while sure some of the actors are decent for the characters; the bones of it are all wrong and knowing canon or not knowing canon doesn’t fix an upside down skeleton.
That brings us to a part of this whole thing that keeps me up at night: attacking actors, writers and more online. This is a hill I’m willing to die on: far too many people will take out their hatred on actors, actresses and writers for a thing failing or not or will relentlessly attack critics for not liking a movie. There is no situation where this behavior is ever acceptable and it’s downright offensive to the rest of us fans who can have civil discourse without hurtling hateful attacks at innocent people.
But I do think there’s a reason behind this phenomena, there’s a method in this madness. I have also sat on my fair amount of flaming trash barges. And it comes down to a surprisingly unremarkable thing: loyalty. I have been a comic book and anime fan for many many years. I’ve been bullied, had to defend my hobbies, had to endure being talked down to by men who assumed that because I was a small brown biological female that I didn’t know what I was talking about: I had endured it all and no one, no one was taking that from me. Many fans have endured similar treatment and when anyone, anyone comes for their beloved property the fangs come out.
By nature, fans are a little defensive. We’ve spent years studying this stuff and then to have Muggles come in and say it’s filth is an insult. Properties that you love feel like your children sometimes and no one likes hearing that their kid is a hideous hobgoblin.
Unfortunately, sometimes, your child is a hideous hobgoblin. And that’s okay. I will go to the mat for films I have no business defending (take for instance X-Men Origins: Wolverine) but I can also objectively admit it’s a raging hot dumpster fire. There has to be a certain level of understanding that sometimes the movie just isn’t good and that leaves plenty of room for personal tastes, too. I love everyone that thought Venom was great, I want to see the world through your eyes, I want to see the movie you saw and I invite kind discussion in the comments below.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow sometimes but it’s one we all at times need to take.
